Suzuki Samurai was Re: [geeks] SPARC proprietary (waaaay

[Dan Duncan]

As I recall, 'nimitz at ns1.nimitzbrood.com' wrote:
> > A manual forces you to have a better understanding of how a
> > car works and pay more attention to what's going on.
> 
> Not necessarily.  Back when I was doing field-service of computer systems I was able to shift gears, adjust the radio, and eat a taco while driving my beat up old Dodge 024.

Are you saying you didn't have an understanding of what was going on
and weren't paying attention?

It's POSSIBLE to safely drive a car whilst using a cellphone, for
example, but many people do not.  All it requires is paying attention.
Note that several studies have shown that requiring a handsfree set
in order to use a cellphone whilst driving actually does nothing
to increase safety.  It's not the extra hand on the wheel that makes
so difference.  It's simply driver inattention.

> The truth is that unless you train people right from the start what could _possibly_ happen (within reason) they will take the whole thing lightly.

I'd back that up with some serious penalties for causing death, injury,
or damage with a vehicle.  Why should people take car "accidents" 
seriously when the law doesn't?  Similar results from something 
besides a car would result in charges of criminal negligence,
reckless endangerment, manslaughter, etc, but cars get this
special protected status for some reason.  Where I live, "careless
driving resulting in death" is a misdemeanor.  Try to pass on a 
2-lane highway, hit a car head on, kill its driver, get charged
with a misdemeanor.  I read about just such a case in the paper
recently.

> I'm all in favor of classes that are a little more intense than the ones taught in school - like the one place in Wisconsin that teaches some serious driving.
> (I don't recall what the name is at the moment but it's been on the news a couple of times.)
> 
> They teach real skids and other handling issues among other things.

Following it up with a tougher driving test resulting in a probationary
license (no driving at night, for example, and possibly restrictions on
the weight and power of the vehicle) that would be converted to
a regular license after a period of time without incidents and maybe
another test might also be nice.

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# ...ham and eggs and scenery, a 'down grade,' a flying coach, a fragrant pipe
#   and a contented heart- these make happiness.     -Mark Twain